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The Crisis of the Third Century
The Crisis of the Third Century was a period of approximately 50 years in the
third century AD, during which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed in the face of civil
war, foreign invasion, plague, and economic depression. Sometimes known as “the
Anarchy,” it resulted in a collapse of Roman governmental authority. While the Roman
Empire survived the Crisis of the Third century and recovered, it emerged from the crisis
fundamentally changed. Thus the Crisis of the Third Century was one of the major
turning points in Roman history.
Causes of the Crisis
The Crisis of the Third Century began with the assassination of Severus
Alexander in 235 AD, but even before his death, the Severan Dynasty had instigated
some of the most important policies that would cause the crisis. Every Severan
emperor except for Alexander had devalued the currency, usually in an attempt to pay
the troops, upon whom Severan power rested. The increased importance of the troops
also led to their greater influence in politics, and their willingness to intervene to make or
break emperors. Without the strong Severan Dynasty to keep them in check, this
became a major problem.
When Severus Alexander was killed the Severan Dynasty came to an end, and
the throne was open to whoever was strong enough to claim it. Civil war swallowed up
the Roman Empire. In 258 AD, the territories of Gaul, Spain, and Britain broke free of
Roman control, nominating their own emperors, and calling their state the Gallic Empire.
Two years later, the eastern provinces broke free, becoming the Palmyrene Empire.
Among the territories that remained loyal to Rome, a number of generals fought for
power. These men are usually called the “barracks emperors” because of their
overwhelmingly military background. Most of these emperors were either killed in battle
or assassinated, and their reigns averaged less than two years each. During this
period, the military made and broke emperors, and any man who wanted to rule had to
carefully court the army.
The Severan emperors had already raised new legions and increased the
salaries of the soldiers by 200 percent, and in order to pay for this they increased taxes
and devalued the currency. During the Crisis of the Third Century the emperors
continued these policies, and often had to bribe the soldiers for support in civil war.
They decreased the silver content in coins and added less valuable metals like bronze
and copper. This, however, caused inflation, as the value of these coins decreased. As
the Roman currency was continually devalued, inflation became rampant, and the
Roman economy went into freefall. Soon, money became nearly worthless. People
stopped using money and began to barter instead. This meant that the Roman
government, which relied on tax revenues, faced bankruptcy. It had to collect taxes in
kind (that is, in the form of food and goods) instead of as money.
Economic problems hampered Rome’s ability to fight its enemies. Indeed, while
the Roman armies fought each other, foreign enemies smashed the Roman border
defenses. New and more dangerous German tribes appeared in this period: the
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Alamanni and Franks on the Rhine and the Goths on the Danube. We know little about
what was happening in the Barbaricum (the lands inhabited by “barbarians”), but it
seems that in the face of Roman power, in the second century smaller Germanic tribes
had begun to band together and form larger, unified groups. These groups could
organize large-scale invasions in a manner not previously possible. They invaded the
empire and sacked and destroyed many important cities.
Even more dangerous than the Germans were the Persians. Indeed, the rise of
Sassanid Persia was perhaps the largest single factor contributing to the Crisis of the
Third Century. The successful campaigns of the Severan emperors against the
Parthian Empire in the late second century had revealed the weakness of the Parthian
Dynasty. As a result, the Parthians were overthrown by the Sassanid Dynasty, a native
Persian dynasty intent on restoring the glory of the Persian Empire to what it had been
before Alexander the Great. The Sasanians were far more aggressive than the
Parthians, and were eager to prove themselves with victories over the Romans. They
overran the eastern frontiers of the Roman Empire, sacked several important cities, and
even captured the Roman emperor Valerian.
Another problem the Roman Empire faced in this period was a major outbreak of
plague. Called the Plague of Cyprian, it devastated towns and villages, killing many of
the famers and soldiers the empire relied on. The depopulation caused by plague
would be a problem that the Roman Empire continued to struggle with even after the
third century.
Recovery and Change
Eventually the Roman Empire began to recover from the Crisis of the Third
Century thanks to a series of competent and aggressive military emperors. In 269 AD,
Emperor Claudius II defeated the Goths at the Battle of Naissus, driving them out of
Roman territory. Claudius died of plague the following year, but he was succeeded by a
brilliant commander named Aurelian, who won more victories against the Goths and the
Alamanni, then embarked on a campaign of reunifying the Roman Empire. He defeated
the Palmyrene Empire and the Gallic Empire, restoring these provinces to Roman
control. For this he was given the title Restitutor Orbis, “Restorer of the World.”
Aurelian was murdered by the Praetorian Guard in 275 AD, and civil war
resumed. However, the Crisis of the Third Century was decisively brought to an end by
Emperor Diocletian, who seized power in 284 and restored efficient government to the
empire. Diocletian built on the reforms of Aurelian and other previous emperors in order
to stabilize the empire. Aurelian had increased the symbolic authority of the Roman
emperor, calling himself dominus et deus (Lord and God), and Diocletian adopted this
title and established elaborate court ceremonies inspired by Eastern monarchies
designed to bestow upon him a sense of being godlike and otherworldly. This ended
the days when the emperor was supposed to pretend he was merely the “first citizen,”
and transformed him into a completely autocratic figure whose authority could not be
challenged. Diocletian apparently hoped this would discourage rebellion and
insubordination.
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Diocletian also built on Aurelian’s economic reforms. Aurelian had begun to
issue coins with more silver content in order to help reverse the devaluation of the
currency. He also passed laws fixing the prices of important goods. Diocletian followed
Aurelian by introducing new, purer coins, such as the gold solidus, which after his reign
became the standard currency in the Roman Empire. He tried to put an end to inflation
by creating an Edict of Prices, a list of how much could be charged for almost every
imaginable good or service (though this plan does not seem to have seriously curbed
inflation). He also established a land tax and a capita (or head) tax. Instead of taxing
whatever crops a town produced (which varied year by year), they levied taxes based
on the number of people in the town and the amount of land involved. Since this could
be calculated with censuses, the Roman government could plan ahead in a way they
never had before.
Another area that needed reform was the military, which had failed to effectively
deal with the empire’s enemies, while becoming a threat in itself. Under Emperor
Gallienus (r. 253-268), senators were prohibited from serving in the army. The emperor
had instated this policy out of fear of powerful senator’s using their troops against him,
but it had the additional effect of ending the old aristocratic hierarchy in the military.
Officers were now no longer likely to have gained their rank through wealth and status,
but from working their way up in the army. The result was a more experienced officer
corps. Gradually, the composition of the army also changed to deal with the effects of
the Crisis. In order to achieve his victories over the Gallic and Palmyrene secessionists,
Aurelian had relied on a fast moving, cavalry-based army, different from the infantrybased legions of the past. Diocletian increased the amount of cavalry in the army and
formed fast-moving armies meant to respond to trouble wherever is arose. Instead of
stationing all the soldiers on the borders, he organized the troops in defensive layers
and mobile field armies to respond quickly to threats when a sector of the frontier was
breached. Diocletian also continued a growing trend of reigning from regions other than
Rome, which was far from the often-troubled borders. Instead, he ruled from cities in
the East. He formed the Tetrarchy, a system of four simultaneously reigning emperors,
who each ruled from a region close to the borders.
By the end of Diocletian’s reign, the Roman Empire had emerged from the Crisis
of the Third Century, and had achieved a level of stability that it had not enjoyed for two
generations. Nonetheless, many of the problems of the crisis—civil war, barbarian
invasions, plague, and economic troubles—would continue to afflict the empire for
centuries to come, and lead to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century.
Nonetheless, thanks to the efforts of several emperors, especially Aurelian and
Diocletian, the Roman Empire gained a new lease on life and went on to enjoy another
two hundred years of unrivaled supremacy over the Mediterranean world.
Summary:
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The Crisis of the Third Century, sometimes known as “the Anarchy,” was a result
of trends that had already begun, especially during the Severan Dynasty, but
which accelerated after the death of Severus Alexander, which officially marks
the start of the crisis.
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Several factors contributed to the Crisis of the Third Century: increased
participation of the military in politics, which led to soldier-emperors in constant
civil war with one another; high inflation and economic depression, partially
caused by the devaluation of the Roman currency; foreign invasions, especially
from the Alamanni and Franks over the Rhine, the Goths over the Danube, and
the Persians over the eastern frontier; and finally, a very deadly plague that
broke out in the third century.
The empire recovered from the Crisis of the Third Century thanks to a series of
competent and aggressive military emperors, especially Aurelian, who reunified
the Roman Empire and defeated its external enemies.
Diocletian, who built on the actions of Aurelian and other predecessors, finally
ended the crisis of the Third Century. He introduced a new, more stable
currency, reorganized the empire’s defenses using a system of defense in depth
with mobile field armies, and strengthened the imperial cult to make him more
respected and feared.
The Roman Empire emerged from the Crisis of the Third Century fundamentally
changed, with a new political, military, and economic culture.
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